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APPENDIX D. 
(FOREST OF BIALAVIEJA.) 
D. 
Account of the Forest of Bialavieja, the habitat of the wild Aurochs or Zubr. By Count de 
Krasinski. (In a Letter to Colonel Jackson, Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, 
see pp. 503, 504.) 
The forest of Bialawieza (Bialavieja) is situated in the present government of Grodno in Lithuania, and 
extends between the towns of Orla, Shereshef and Prujany, over a surface of about twenty-nine square 
Polish or German miles (fifteen to a degree). It derives its name from the village of Bialavieja, which 
lies in the centre of the forest on the banks of the Narevka, and contains fifty-six peasants’ cottages, a 
church and an inn. Close to this village, stands on a hill, a hunting-lodge, built by King Augustus III., 
and enlarged by his successor, King Stanislaus Poniatowski, but now falling into ruins. In another 
part of the forest are the ruins of a castle called Old Bialavieja. According to the local tradition, it was 
in olden time the hunting station of the sovereigns of the country, and derived its name, which signifies 
the White Tower, from its white- washed walls. Besides the above-mentioned village, there are, in the 
same forest, two hamlets called Teremiska and Pogorzelei : they lie at a short distance from each other, 
and contain, each of them, about twenty cottages. 
There are, on the borders of the forest, twenty-four villages, which belong to the forest department 
(Board of Woods and Forests), and from whose inhabitants the keepers and guards of the forest of Bia- 
lavieja are selected. The principal of these villages is Hainovsk, formerly the residence of the employes 
of the forest. 
The forest is divided into twelve districts, called Strazi, i. e. wards, namely, 1, the ward of Augustovsk, 
so called from Augustus, king of Poland, Elector of Saxony; 2, Narevsk; 3, Brovsk; 4, Hainovsk; 
5, Krukovsk; 6, Okolnitzk ; 7, Lessniinsk ; 8, Starsliinsk ; 9, Stolpovisk ; 10, Svietlitshansk ; II, Pod- 
besk; 12, Dsiidovlansk. 
A great number of streams issue from the forest ; of these, the principal are the river Narev, into 
which the greater part of the other rivulets empty themselves, and the Lesna, a tributary of the Bug that 
formerly marked the limit between Poland and Lithuania. 
The forest belonged to the demesnes of the royal household, and was exclusively reserved for the royal 
sports. It was on that account preserved from the clearings whereby so many forests -were destroyed 
and converted into arable land. It remains therefore in the primitive state of an American forest. It 
contains a great quantity of different kinds of wild animals, such as bears, wild boars, wolves, foxes, lynx, 
elks, and roe-bucks, whilst many beavers are found on its rivers ; but the most remarkable of its inha- 
bitants is the aurochs, or bison, called in the Polish language Zubr. It appears from different records, 
in which the name of the Zubr is mentioned, that this animal was always peculiar to Lithuania, but it is 
impossible to ascertain whether it extended further than the forest of Bialavieja. The opinion that it 
was formerly found in other parts of the country, among others in the forests of Mazovia, seems to be 
erroneous, and to have arisen from a confusion of the Tur with the Zubr. The Tur, which is constantly 
mentioned in the old national songs of all the Slavonic countries, was, according to the description of con- 
temporary writers, a wild ox, probably the same as that still preserved in England at Hamilton, Chilling- 
ham, and Alnwick, and entirely different from the Zubr. 
A Latin poem, entitled “ De Bisonte et ejus venatione,” written by a certain Hussovianus for Pope 
Leo X., but dedicated after his death to Bona Sforza, Queen of Poland, and printed at Cracow, 1523, 
gives the following description of the Zubr : — 
" II sec fera Lithuanis longe ssevissima sylvis 
Nascitur, et fieri corpore tanta solet. 
